Les Papillons
by Nautica Dawn
Summary: 50 sentences of what could have, should have, and would have been between Karin and Sai.


_**Les Papillons**_

_(The Butterflies)_

By Hikari Adams

Disclaimer: me no own.

**A/N**: This is unbeta'd, so I apologize for any errors. Some of these sentences are insanely long, but I'm fairly certain that they are grammatically correct. If they're not, feel free to correct me. I had a lot of fun writing this, but I realize now just how hard a 50-sentence format is to work with. 

I dedicate this to **Banira** and to every writer who has written a 50-sentence story. I have a newfound respect for all of you.

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Le sable (sand)

The first time she sees him is in Sunagakure, and she laughs at his replacement status until Juugo quietly points out her own.

Les plantes grimpantes (vines)

When the final battle is over, there is no distinction between friends and enemies, so the last thing she sees as she falls against the vines littering the ground is his fake smile.

La boue (mud)

When he laughs at her after she falls in the mud, she makes sure his sketchbook joins her.

Une grotte (cave)

Karin hates caves, so when she's trapped in one with that Sai boy, she tries to pretend that he's her stoic Uchiha teammate.

Les feuilles (leaves)

She's a part of Sasuke's Hebi, but Sai finds that she fits among the burning leaves better than the stolen serpents.

Les espèces disparues (extinct animals)

Sai is perfectly emotionless, so after meeting Sasuke and Itachi, Karin decides that he is the last of a special kind of ninja.

Les fraises (strawberries)

Every shinobi with black hair seems to have a food-related obsession, and Karin is amused to find that Sai likes strawberries as red as her hair.

Bavard (talkative)

Konoha quickly learns that while Karin is talkative, Sai is not, but their conversations work all the same.

Un singe (monkey)

When Sai says that Karin resembles a tomato, she promptly tells him that he looks like a monkey.

Un arbre (tree)

When Sai insults Sakura, he stays for the chakra-enhanced punch, but when he insults the inventive Karin, he hides in the trees until the metal storm has passed.

Un requin (shark)

Kisame scares Karin, but when she's faced with a platoon of Konoha shinobi, she finds the smiling boy with the ink tigers even scarier.

Salé (salty)

Sai learns to cook when he realizes that Karin can only make something if it's buried in salt.

Le musée (museum)

Karin thinks Sai's apartment is better than any art museum.

Fleur (flower)

Sakura is a cherry blossom, Hinata is an amaryllis, Ino is a freesia bloom, Hanabi is a hydrangea, Temari is edelweiss, and Tenten is jasmine, but Sai thinks that Karin is a magnolia.

La mére (mother)

When the identity of Naruto's parents is finally revealed, Sai jokingly points out that his mother resembles that cute tracker working with the Uchiha traitor.

Peinture (paint)

Karin once drew a picture, but it was destroyed by Kabuto, so when she sees Sai painting away, she goes and buys the supplies before joining him.

La nuit (night)

Sai's life was spent in metaphorical darkness, but Karin's was spent in a true night, so when they met, things seemed to balance into a gentle daybreak.

Le chat noir (black cat)

Sai believes his books, and he fears black cats and ladders as a result; Karin can't understand this, but Sai can't understand her fear of bunnies.

La lune (moon)

Karin has never liked the night and her shadows, but when she sees Sai by the grace of the moon, she begins to like the dark a little more.

Le soleil (sun)

As ROOT, Sai never spent a lot of time in the sun, so when he meets Karin, he is sure that her ruby sunlight will find a way to burn him.

Le serpent (snake)

Even though she worked for Orochimaru, Karin is terrified of snakes, so when she meets Mitarashi Anko and her pets, Sai is forced to comfort her for three days straight before she is ready to leave her apartment again.

Le monde (world)

Karin, though a long-time kunoichi, has never seen much of the world, and when she sees the paintings of all the places that Sai has been, she makes him promise that he will take her to each location someday.

Le chien (dog)

Sai finds the little talking dog of Kakashi's annoying, and when the mutt blackmails him after catching him with the redheaded tracker working with the traitor, he actually laughs when said tracker frightens Pakkun with a fluffy dog called a 'poodle'.

Mes amis (my friends)

"My friends," Sai began one bright day, "I would like to inform you that Hatake-san won't be here today, but you shouldn't worry, I'm sure the traitor over there will be happy to know that Karin-san will be joining us on this mission," and he inwardly rejoiced at the Uchiha's discomfort.

Sept (seven)

Squad Seven is a family that Sai was never a part of, and Karin was never able to infiltrate their ranks either, so the polar opposites conclude that a family of two is always better than a family of four.

Le tapis (rug)

When Sai accidentally breaks Karin's favorite pair of glasses, she retaliates by wrapping him in a furry pink rug and hanging him in the middle of Konoha's marketplace on the busiest day of the year.

Le moulin (windmill)

When Karin was a little girl, she always wanted to live in a windmill, but she's a kunoichi, and she knows that Sai's small flat at the top of the tallest apartment complex, is as close as she'll get to being near the wind.

Rouge (red)

As a painter, Sai has seen a lot of colors, but he had never seen anything redder than blood until he meets the very red Karin, a sight that makes his artistic side immediately smitten.

Je t'aime (I love you)

There are three words that cannot be found in a shinobi's vocabulary, and though every woman wants to hear them, Sai knows that Karin understands the hidden words in his art better than anyone.

L'histoire (history)

Karin's worst subject is history, but she learns Konoha's slowly as Sai takes the time to explain everything about the Hidden Leaf when she joins them.

Vert (green)

Sai is not too fond of plants, but when he sees Karin working in her little garden, he finds that maybe the green isn't as bad as he thought.

Les maths (math)

Konoha's resident painter despises numbers, so he often pushes all math-related work to the redheaded tracker he recently moved in with.

Au revoir (goodbye)

For the first time, Karin doesn't want to say goodbye, but she and Sai are enemies, so she knows that he could die by her hand.

Une rivière (river)

The Nakano River, as Karin hears it referred to, runs beneath the red bridge where she met him after joining Konoha.

La bibliothéque (library)

Sai can usually be found in the library studying emotions, but Naruto recently saw him with Sasuke's former teammate, explaining the history of Konoha to the newcomer.

Le masque (mask)

Sakura is the first to crack Sai's apathetic mask, but it is Karin who removes it completely.

Le vampire (vampire)

The redhead tracker believes that Sai resembles a vampire, and he's mildly thankful that she is one of the few women to find such a disturbing resemblance attractive.

Le feu (fire)

Summers in the Land of Fire are the worst in the world, and Sai is forced to show Karin the best swimming hole in Konoha after she threatens to burn his sketchbook.

L'enfant (child)

When Haruno Sakura's tragic daughter is born five years after Karin joins Konoha, the redhead wonders what motherhood is like until she realizes that such a life would be impossible with her ruined body, so she prays that Sai never wants a child.

Jeune (young)

People are only young once, but at fifteen, Karin knows that she is no longer young when she is forced to fight to the death against those abstract pieces of living ink, and a part of her wonders if the boy with the brush feels the same way.

La vie (life)

Life as a missing-nin is always complicated, and Karin burst into tears of joy when the ink-boy informs her that she has been accepted as a kunoichi of the Leaf and that she will not face the harsh punishment of execution as she had expected to; she will be allowed to live.

Le matin (morning)

Karin is not a morning person, and when Sai arrives on her doorstep at 6:00 A.M. to tell her that she will be attending Team Seven's training session that day, she is sure to take out her wrath on the poor boy when Kakashi finally allows her to spar with them.

Un pomme (apple)

Growing up with the Oto life that Karin had, certain things were considered luxuries not needed, and Sai is rather amused to learn that she had never had an apple before Konoha.

Le thé (tea)

Karin is not allowed to make tea on the nights when Team Kakashi gets together at Sai's apartment, but it is not because she is a reminder of a painful past; it is because she typically sets the teakettle on fire when she tries.

Le frére (brother)

When Karin sees Sasuke and Naruto together, she is reminded of brothers; when she asks why Sai is not included, Sakura quietly explains that Sai once had his own brother, and that the pain of loss has never faded for him.

Une institutrice (teacher f.)

Karin isn't allowed to become a kunoichi immediately after joining Konoha, and it is Sai, after seven long months, who suggests that she be given a job as a teacher at the Academy.

Le forêt (forest)

Even though there is a lot of drama, Karin still has good memories from her early days in Konohagakure when Sai took her to watch the sunrise through the giant trees of the forest after he learned that she could, in fact, draw very realistic images.

Raison (reason)

When Sasuke returns, Sai no longer has a reason to remain with Team Kakashi, but Tsunade gives him a new reason when she assigns him to guard the mysterious redhead that came with the returning Uchiha.

Le cœur (heart)

Karin and Sai are among the few Konoha shinobi of their generation to still harbor broken hearts when they are forced to work together on an espionage mission, and everyone notices when they return, three months later, with healing hearts that they try to hide from the gossipers they call friends.

Les papillons (butterflies)

One of Karin's earliest memories is of her mother sitting in a field among the electric blue and velvet black butterflies, as a result, her favorite painting of Sai's has always been the one at the back of his apartment, the one of the redheaded woman among myriad species of butterflies in a forest glade, and though she knows it's her in the portrait, she remembers her mother every time she sees it.

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**Fleur**: To clear up any confusion, the flowers were selected for their meanings:

Cherry Blossom: kind/gentle

Amaryllis: shy

Hydrangea: proud

Edelweiss: courage/power

Jasmine: grace

Freesia: childish

Magnolia: natural

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To everyone who read my other Saika (it's an addicting pairing), thank you! Now go and read Banira's!!


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